THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

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Gov: This Place Is A Mess

Gov. Rod Blagojevich asked President Bush to declare seven counties in Illinois disaster areas, including Cook and DuPage counties, after heavy rains dumped billions of gallons of rain on northern Illinois Sept. 12-14 causing significant damage throughout the region.

Last Friday, seven teams fanned out across Cook, DuPage, DeKalb, Grundy, Kane LaSalle and Will counties made up of officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA), the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) and local officials.

"Thousands of people in these seven counties have suffered flood damage to their homes," Blagojevich said in a press release. "I'm urging the president and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to quickly approve my request for federal assistance."

A spokeswoman for IEMA said teams have walked through Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Maine Township, Niles, Glenview and Mt. Prospect in the last week.

In his request, Blagojevich stressed that this round of flooding is the sixth seen in the state in the last 13 months, including the storms of August 2007 that affected many of the same areas that were hit hard by the storms several weeks ago.

Though assessments by the joint teams are not complete, to date they have found 10 homes completely destroyed by the flood and 522 that suffered "major damage" and 2,000 with "lesser damage" across those seven counties.

In Cook County they found 244 cases of major damage and though no homes have yet been found destroyed in Cook County, two were found in DuPage County.